Mac Book Pros, jewelry, cash & more recovered; 4 arrested

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) - A stolen wallet from Panera eventually led to the arrest of four Peruvian nationals.

Grand Island Police responded to Best Buy on Wednesday, August 31, after two women purchased two Mac Book Pros using a stolen credit card. The women then took off with two men in a Black GMC Acadia with California plates.

The vehicle took off and when GIPD investigators got involved in the case, they knew from a previous similar incident, the suspects ended up in Lincoln.

A bolo was put out and deputies with the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office located the vehicle just before 1:15 p.m. driving on Interstate 80 near northwest 48th in Lincoln.

What deputies found in the vehicle was quite the haul.

Lancaster County Sheriff’s Captain Mike Peschong said deputies recovered eight Mac Book Pros valued at $19,200; $10,000 in high-end purses, watches and jewelry; $10,769 in cash; and other gift cards and financial transaction devices that didn’t belong to the group.

Lavinia Santibanez, Fiorella Ramirez, Luis Tello and Pablo Dumas were arrested. The four are based out of Los Angeles, but are in this country illegally. The sheriff’s office worked with the Department of Homeland Security as well as Grand Island Police in this case.

GIPD Captain Jim Duering said between them and other jurisdictions, they can attribute a fairly large amount of cases related to this group.

In this case, he said the suspects preyed on an older woman, taking her wallet when a brief second of opportunity opened up and then within minutes started making purchases.

Capt. Duering said he believes that this is a group of roaming criminals that hits the interstate corridor and then ends up in another state days later.

They are hard to identify because they are not local and even harder to find because they are foreign nationals. He said after they hit, they make go back to their home country.

“This is a good arrest,” he said. “This probably prevented a lot of future incidents.”